In this June 16, 2018 photo, Taliban fighters greet residents in the Surkhroad district of Nangarhar province, east of Kabul, Afghanistan. Peace in Afghanistan seems even more elusive, both for troops on the front lines of this war-battered country and for survivors of countless attacks, since the Taliban shrugged off the government’s latest offers of cease-fire and negotiations.

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Taliban fighters massacred more than 57 Afghan military personnel and police officers in four separate attacks across northern Afghanistan, Afghan officials told the New York Times on Monday, the latest in a series of devastating and demoralizing attacks on security forces there.

The Monday attack consisted of what the New York Times described as “simultaneous assaults on six outposts” in a single strategic district in the Kunduz Province followed by several devastating assaults in outlying provinces, all of which left at least a dozen Afghan soldiers and police officers dead.

The rough start to September for Afghan security forces comes after a month that saw Taliban fighters occupy Ghazni City and wipe out up to 100 Afghan commandos, their advance halted only when U.S. forces struck back with air support from B-1 bombers, A-10 Thunderbolt II attack craft, AH-64 Apache helicopters, and MQ-9 Reaper drones.

It’s unsurprising to read reports of Afghan security forces fleeing the path of oncoming Taliban hordes during the Kunduz and Ghazni City assaults, as the Times noted: Afghan soldiers and police officers a have increasingly endured particularly demoralizing defeats ever since Taliban commandos from the militants’ so-called ‘Red Unit’ slaughtered scores of Afghan troops in a 36-hour period in November 2017.

A new analysis by the New York Times suggests that the Taliban control far more territory in Afghanistan than previously disclosed to the public: 61% of the country compared to the 44% documented by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

Very helpful analysis from @nytimes on how the US has lied about how badly the Afghan war is going.

Jared Keller is a senior editor at Task & Purpose. A contributing editor at Pacific Standard magazine, he has previously worked for The Atlantic, Bloomberg Digital, Al Jazeera America, and Maxim.
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